I have no idea why things don’t actually work and when presented with a core dump or any previous debugging the user did I panic like a little girl, so I restored to a previous system restore point, because fuck the changes you made since then and the fact that if you do them again the issue will come back, I’m just supposed to close this ticket, not actually fix things.
If it’s ACTUALLY part of your job I’ll care, if it’s some bullshit thing a wannabe IT user did to fuck their shit up that has nothing to do with their job (99% of the time it’s this) then fuck you.
It’s a business machine, not your personal test lab. Goddamn users, man. Every single time.
Your job is to break computers? If not, my guess is that you can do your job in such a way as to not break the computer. If not, the company really needs to reassess how your job is done
The implied problem you aren’t understanding is scope. Restoring your machines functionality and determining that if you do blank the universe breaks IS AN ACTUAL SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM that is in scope and highly efficient. The company probably doesn’t pay you to piddle fuck around nor does it pay the IT guy to make you piddle fucking around work out.
Digging in to the problem and figuring out an exact reproduction of the bug so that a bug can be filed with the appropriate owner of the whatever code and a fix instituted at some point would be far more interesting and fun, even more so if its in code you actually control and you can actually fix it but its likely not actually productive unless you can make a strong case for it.
The cost of fixing your stuff in 15 minutes and having you back in action is about $12.50. The cost of spending 3 days on it is $1200. Surely you understand why it works the way it works.
The implied problem you aren’t understanding is scope. Restoring your machines functionality and determining that if you do blank the universe breaks IS AN ACTUAL SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM that is in scope and highly efficient. The company probably doesn’t pay you to piddle fuck around nor does it pay the IT guy to make your piddle fucking around work out.
Fucking THANK. YOU.
This is exactly what I’m talking about, we don’t get hired so that we can accommodate some bullshit that an individual user just thinks they need. We are hired to keep your machine working in the capacity that your job requires it to work. Nowhere in our job description does it say that we have to be your little errand boy making your fuck-ass decisions function in our environment.
The company paid me to do exactly the actions I did before the system restore, which I had to redo after the system restore, and then I had to continue debugging and fixing the issue myself. Your cost analysis is fair in some cases, but it doesn’t really apply here. It wasn’t a “undo the changes so they can get back to work” situation, it was a “fix the issue so they can continue working” situation.
Also, restoring the machine to a previous state was not a fix for my issue. I wasn’t in a position where I did not have access, nor was I in one where I couldn’t revert the changes myself (even without the system restore). This was a lazy/incompetent tech, who finished their ticket and went home for the day having done nothing but inconvenience me even more, and cause me to spend even more time on the issue.
I only wish this was the only interaction I’ve ever had with IT where they proved to be more trouble than it’s worth, but sadly that’s not the case.
Fun story, I worked IT for an American Telecom company. One day I recieved a phone call from a guy who was setting up his router. We were maybe five minutes into troubleshooting. He asks if he can eat his dinner while we troubleshoot and I say “no worries”. Within thirty seconds, I hear a bang and panicd screaming. He informs me he dumped soy sauce and rice all over his router and work space. I sent a field tech to replace the router and set it up.
“Why doesn’t Uber specific hardware that the vendor DEMANDED be put on a switch that we don’t have credentials for not work seamlessly with the network?!?”
“Because it doesn’t confirm to the standards of TCP/IP, and requires a dual NIC solution because God forbid they design their system to allow basic routing.”
“You just don’t know what you’re doing!”
“No, I’m just not going to volunteer myself to learn FCoIP so that your one special system has the support it needs until we deprecate it in six months.”
Agreed. I recognize it is the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and The Woz generation. But the technology is so far beyond what they created, even though we use what the Boomer generation created every day, and I get that.
It’s the Jobs, Gates, and Woz generation, but until they step out of the way we won’t get a new generation of pioneers in technology. It used to be the dream was to create the next big thing, now the dream is to make something that gets you bought up by Google, Apple, or Microsoft.
I highly recommend the original Bastard Operator From Hell stories, for those who read this comic and just nod yes with their heads and mentally go “Yeah, that’s how it is”.
BOFH is still semi-regularly updated over at El Reg. It’s not the same (way different from the Striped Irregular Bucket days), but it’s still enjoyable.
I still have fond memories of the episode where his excuse calendar comes up “solar flares” and he proceeds to explain to people how their devices aren’t working because magnetic interference from the sun is moving the bits on the hard drive around.
Love these. Reminds my of the CD drive cup holder and my personal favorite at my shop was the computer was afraid of me. Every time I came near to fix the problem they were having it went away. I was told the computer must be afraid of me and knows when I’m coming
The number of people who fail to recognize what it (typically) means when an issue magically disappears while Simone is looking over their shoulder is absurd.
I doubt that would affect Wi-Fi, but what does affect it (at least 2.4 GHz frequencies) is microwaves. They operate at the same frequency and interfere with the router’s output waves.
My wife refused to believe me until I had her run a speed test and watch the signal drop when I started up the microwave, then rise again when I turned it off.
No. RF is not affected directly by air movement. However, it can be indirectly affected, by moving the antennae positioning, moving other objects in the way, or causing rain or snow to block the path of the RF. Source: Network Engineer for 10 years
I’ve been on both sides of it. One of my favorite IT moments was changing to a new phone. I couldn’t access my email until I did a two factor auth process. Of course they emailed me my code to access my account to unlock my email. Good thing I also had a pc at home with access to my email.
Then I was supporting a lab. One woman was clearly aggravated when she called. She said no matter what she did her screen was blank. I head right over and just look at it for a few secs. I check the lowest hanging fruit solution first and see the power light on her monitor isn’t on. I see it is unplugged, plug her monitor in and problem solved. I’ve never seen a more embarrassed person than her. lol
Networking has to be the most thankless job in IT. You are invisible when the system is working, which is 99% of the time. It stays up like that because they are monitoring it and maintaining it behind the scenes. When it fails though the failure can be catastrophic for everyone, we literally cannot do any work without it. Then everyone’s eyes, and criticism, is on them.
Somehow, my phone number got printed on an ISP provided router that services like trailer parks in Arizona. So I get calls randomly asking “Hey is this ____ Internet?” & I go “No sorry, this is just some dude. But hey, where did you find this number? I just wanna know why people are keeping calling me”
And fuck if it isn’t like pulling teeth. I literally just want to know where it’s printed.
“Uhh, so this isn’t Blank Internet?” Click
“It’s the Internet number” “yeah but like where are you reading it from?” “The internet” “Oh like a website?” “No, like the internet… so you can’t fix it?”
Voicemail: “Hey this is Joe Oldman. I live at 113 blank drive. My social security number is 0000005. Can you send someone down to fix my internet? Thanks”
Finally someone under the age of 40 called me and finally said “this is the number on the back of the router” but even when I asked “So what router is it? Like where is it printed?” “Idk”. Like dude, you literally just read this number and typed it in your damn phone. What are you looking at.
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